Welcome to one of my favorite posts each month, my side-hustle income report!
I actually had a bit of extra time to work on earning more with my side-hustles as I had some time off work that was going to expire at the end of September. It was two weeks, so the first week I took the family up to a cabin that I rented off of AirBnB. It was quite a nice place, and the price was right – just $45.50 a night plus fees.
Since it was a bit of a drive I used my strategy of making money on a road trip. I checked but found no loads I could haul on uShip. Instead, I did some gig app jobs while on the way up and while we drove around seeing the sites. That was good and all, but I wanted to find another way to make some money while I was out and about. Then it struck me, check out one of my secret shopping sites – Bestmark!
They have a travel locations section where they list jobs that haven't been done in ages for an extra bounty. For example, a job that normally earns just $14 was marked up to $67! I found one I could do not far from the Painted Desert National Park. I will have to add in this trick to my Earn Money On A Roadtrip article.
Anyways, on to the meat and potatoes.
How I Earned Side-Hustle Income in September
Secret Shopping - $73
I performed three jobs for Bestmark, two of which were just sending an online inquiry and copy-pasting the response along with how much time elapsed between submitting and their reply. Those only paid $3.
The real money came from a secret shop at a car dealership. 30 minutes pretending to be interested in purchasing a car, plus 30 minutes answering the survey questions got me a cool $67!
You DEFINITELY should be using bestmark if you own a Buick, GMC, or Chevrolet vehicle. I always see shops where you evaluate the oil and tire change service. You get reimbursed for the service AND get paid $25! Free oil change and money for filling out a survey after – yes, please!
If you are interested in signing up for Bestmark, sign up HERE.
eBay - $377.25
Towards the middle of the month, I really started to amp up the time I devoted towards my eBay side-hustle. It has paid off handsomely!
It broke down as such:
In September I sold 28 items, which puts my average sale at just over $25.
Notable items include an Original big box copy of the PC game Age of Empires which was shipped off to a buyer in New Zealand. I also sold a handmade Tiger Beer can ball cap, it was a hat made out of the aluminum cans. A bunch of different inks, most of which were expired. I also sold a box of blank video cassettes to a rap video director in Brooklyn.
It's interesting to think about how items move about the country and world. That box of cassettes was found in a thrift store near the cabin I stayed at. So it went from this small town in the middle of a forest in Arizona, to Brooklyn, NY to be used to film rap videos. The Age of Empires was part of a huge haul I found at the Goodwill pay by the pound outlet. Now it will reside in New Zealand as part of a collection.
(Protip: Printer ink is a quick seller on eBay, even if it is expired. If you can get it for cheap enough, buy it!)
Gig Apps - $304.75
I really got out there and hustled on these gig apps. Again, Gigwalk failed to have much of anything but this time they royally pissed me off.
I had an assignment to find SaraLee Artesano Golden Wheat bread in a display. The first store didn't have a display, so that was easy. The second store did and here is where I ran into a problem, they rejected my submission!
At first, I thought maybe I didn't take a pic of the correct flavor of bread, but upon checking the pic I sent I had!
The instructions said that if the bread was on a display with other products to take one 'clear and well-framed image of the ENTIRE display and surrounding area.'
Here is the picture, judge for yourself if I followed the instructions.
Well, I emailed them telling them I had taken the correct photo. That maybe they missed the bread as it was just a small part of the display. This was their response:
“Hello Justin, In all Gig description we ask for a clear and well framed pictures. Typically this is because of our clients demands. Even if the QA Team told you the rejections was because you took a picture of the wrong display it wouldn't matter. The picture you sent me is unacceptable and is well outside the definition of a clear and well framed picture as the instructions requested. Brian”
Wow, so Brian is a judge of the pictures now. Due to all this hassle, I cannot recommend anyone to use Gigwalk. Field Agent and Easyshift have way more jobs and are much nicer to deal with.
Screw Gigwalk.
Robinhood - $15.33
I had three people sign up using my link. I received two shares of SIRI and one of GRPN.
If you are interested in signing up to trade stocks for FREE using Robinhood, use my link and we both get a random share. It could even be a share of Apple or Facebook, both worth over $150!
If you want to read my recent review of Robinhood, click here.
SeekingAlpha - $135.76
I wrote two articles for SeekingAlpha in September. I had a goal of writing four but pivoted towards using my time to list items for eBay. This was because I found no stock I was passionate enough to write about after these first two.
You can check out my two September articles below.
Now Is The Time To Purchase Dave & Buster's
Profit From Hurricane Harvey Reconstruction With This Company
Steemit - $114.05
I posted six articles on Steemit in September. My highest reward was an article on Meteor Crater which I visited while up at the cabin. Check it out here if you wanna see pics of this incredible place!
When cryptocurrencies shot up this past summer, I had over $25,000 in my account!
This is a Total Side-Hustle Income of $1,020.14!
I have topped $1,000 a month in side-hustle income! Like every extra dollar, it all gets invested.
For those curious, this money invested at an average rate of 8% for 40 years will return $24,758.
You know what though? This is just one month. Last month I earned an extra $694.28. That becomes almost $17K using the same calculations as above.
So for two months of part-time hustling, I have potentially increased my future wealth by over $40K.
But the hustle doesn't stop here. Every month this extra money will pile in, compounding as time goes on.
You can be in this same path towards wealth, you just have to DO IT!
I hope this inspires anyone wanting to earn some extra money. Every single side-hustle I do is one YOU can be doing TODAY (ok, maybe not SeekingAlpha)! There is hardly a barrier to entry, besides laziness.
If you want to make some extra cash, GO AND DO IT! Stop making excuses and hustle. Use your skills to earn money in your own way. The feeling of money earned that is not from your day-to-day job is so much better.
Start today because;
It Ain't Gonna Hustle Itself!
Feeling motivated now? Pledge to take my $10 per day side-hustle challenge and start building wealth faster!
@getonthetrain/my-usd10-day-side-hustle-challenge-to-you
Did you earn anything from side-hustles in September? Let me know in a comment below!